June 9, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



831 



for wall-coverings or tapestries, such as were seen 

 in dwellings of rich Spaniards in the caj)ital. In 

 1814 they still believed in dreams, wizards and the 

 power to change into animals. 



The great variety of suffixes used with nu- 

 merals is a striking feature. The highest named 

 number was 160,000 with multiples. There was no 

 word for temple. In relationship, brother and first 

 cousin were expressed by the same term. The 

 writer mentions Pocoman only as the name of the 

 people. He quotes constantly from Padre Viana's 

 "Vita Christiani. " 



Some Aspects of the Land as a Factor in Mexican 



History: Leon Dominian. 



The relief of the land has afforded certain lines 

 of easiest access to the plateau region. The line 

 of advance of the Mexicans in the course of their 

 early migrations, the routes followed by the white 

 man in modern times, and railway penetration 

 have all been determined by preexisting natural 

 routes. Settlement has taken place mainly on the 

 plateau and above the 4,000-foot contour. This 

 region constitutes the only favorable human habi- 

 tat within present Mexican territory, hence is ex- 

 plained the excess of population and of the exist- 

 ence of the larger cities on the plateau. Physical 

 conditions 'Within this tableland have affected the 

 social status of the inhabitants at all times. The 

 want of political union found by Cortes and mani- 

 fest throughout known Mexican history is largely 

 the result of the conspicuous lack of means of 

 communication. Navigable rivers are not found 

 in Mexico, while the mountainous and intermon- 

 tane regions are characterized by a succession of 

 narrow valleys, each practically walled up from 

 the others by intervening ridges over which travel 

 is arduous. In the same way the Mexican form 

 of land tenure can be traced to the occurrence of 

 large arid areas. The inhabitants of the three 

 tierras reflect respectively the conditions which 

 surround them. From the standpoint of conti- 

 nental relations, Mexico is a transition zone, both 

 physical and human. In the former case the sa- 

 lient features of North American physiography 

 are prolonged into Mexico to end in the vicinity of 

 the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In the latter the 

 country can be considered as the link connecting 

 Anglo-Saxon and Latin America. 



Incense Burners from a Cave near Orizaba: H. 



Newell Wakdle. 



The Lamborn Collection of the Academy of Nat- 

 ural Sciences of Philadelphia contains four curi- 

 ous earthenware beasts, found in a cave near Ori- 



zaba, Mexico. Two of the monsters have sup- 

 ported incense-pans, and two were probably at- 

 tached to and form a part of such eultus objects 

 of a cave temple. The types are believed to be 

 previously undeseribed, but show affinities both in 

 form and in style of art to the eultus objects from 

 the ancient religious center of ChavclS, Guatemala. 

 Their relationship to the distribution and signifi- 

 cance of the cave god is briefly considered. 



The Bain Ceremony as Practised to-day ty the 

 Maya Indians of Southern Yucatan and North- 

 ern British Honduras: Thomas Gann. 

 The paper describes the ceremony as practised 

 by the Santa Cruz, Icaiche and Xcanha Indians, 

 and the mixed Indians inhabiting the northern 

 portion of British Honduras, and indicates points 

 of resemblance between the ceremony and various 

 ceremonial religious procedures of the Maya of 

 Yucatan at the time of the conquest, as well as of 

 the modern Lacandon Indians. 



Climatic Changes and Maya Civilisation: Ells- 



woKTH Huntington. 



In the search for the causes of the rise and fall 

 of civilization the Maya hold a peculiarly impor- 

 tant place, since they afford an independent Amer- 

 ican means of testing conclusions reached in the 

 Old World. Perhaps the most striking fact about 

 the Maya civilization is that it developed in a re- 

 gion where agriculture is to-day extremely diffi- 

 cult or well-nigh impossible, where tropical fevers 

 are at their worst, where the hot, damp climate is 

 in itself highly enervating, and where neither the 

 natives nor the people of Spanish descent have 

 been able to make any progress. In the better 

 climate of the Yucatan coast and of the Guate- 

 malan plateau, however, the physical conditions are 

 far more favorable, and a certain amount of prog- 

 ress can now be seen. This suggests that when the 

 Maya flourished the climate can scarcely have been 

 so unfavorable as at present. 



In the corresponding parts of Asia, that is in 

 Indo-China and the East Indies, similar ruins are 

 found in a similar geographical environment. 

 Farther north in the desert belt of both America 

 and Asia there is abundant evidence of an irregular 

 shifting backward and forward of the rainy con- 

 ditions of the temperate zone into and out of the 

 present arid regions. This process would nat- 

 urally force the dry belt alternately to invade the 

 Maya region, causing dry conditions favorable to 

 the civilization, and to retreat from it, causing the 

 present unfavorable conditions. Becent investiga- 

 tions of the chemical history of the salt lakes of 



